


Misha and Me

by ashandcas (ashriddle4)



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Bi!Jensen, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Happy Ending, Jensen has a crush on Jared, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Slow Burn, all 3rd person limited POV, don't hate me, so many pain, some homophobia, straight!Jared
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-06-10 16:58:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6965488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashriddle4/pseuds/ashandcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen Ackles had two loves of his life. A woman the world knew about and a man the world didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this has gotten out of hand. I've been in like a writing fervor since I had the idea and I'm sorry to all my other WIPs and such, but I haven't been this inspired by an idea in like ever. This story will stay as close to plausible truth as I can manage. Danneel and Vicki feature throughout the story but part of this is set in 2060 and at that point both the women have passed after wonderful fulfilling lives with their husbands. Yes there is a bit of J2 in this. Jensen has a crush on him for awhile.

Jensen’s walker squeaked on his kitchen’s hardwood floors. Thankfully, he’d stretch out his tired muscles and probably be able to walk around on his own by noon. Just needed that warm up.

The coffee maker had automatically turned on and it was buzzing and whirring as it dutifully made his morning coffee. Jensen pulled down a chipped mug from the cabinet and one with pretty daisies on it. He filled them both and left his coffee black, but he put a little cream and sugar in the other. He sat the daisy cup on the little cafe table where Danneel had sat almost every morning of their marriage, while checking up on the news on her phone. 

Danneel would also peek out the window and wave at Genevieve Padalecki next door. Jensen missed when the Padalecki’s were their neighbors. Jensen hated the baby blue the neighbors had painted his best friend’s house. Gen had always kept it ice cream white and complained about the new color, every time she and Jared came to visit.

It had been six years since Danneel had taken a sip of the coffee, but Jensen still made it for her every day. Jensen had loved her deeply and Danneel had lived the full and happy life she deserved. Many days left Jensen wondering why the string of his life had these few extra inches on the end. Mostly, he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

But then he passed by his refrigerator and saw the calendar his daughter-in-law had made, each month a different picture of one of his grandsons. The little boxes for each day were blank except for the ones on Thursday where his shaky handwriting had scrawled “Lunch with JJ”. 

There were things left in life that were good.

Jensen pulled the orange bottle of Metamucil out of the cabinet and poured it into his coffee. He stirred it up with the spoon then made himself a little packet of instant brown sugar and cinnamon oatmeal. He put his coffee and oatmeal on the little tray on his walker and pushed it into the living room next to his orthopedic chair. 

He sat down to eat his breakfast and watch some TV. He flipped through a few channels and paused when he saw his younger self; the symbol for TV Land was in the bottom corner. His lips twitched into a smile. He missed it sometimes, being so broad and strong. He missed being six foot. Only sometimes though. Mostly he accepted aging in its course.

It took a moment for Jensen to remember the episode, but then he saw Dean sitting outside a Gas-N-Sip, twirling his cell phone in his hand and watching Cas as he went about his duties at the small convenience store.

Jensen’s chest tightened. Seeing Misha like this...tan and strong. Dark hair and striking eyes. It hurt. Jensen grabbed the remote from the side table and clicked the TV off. Jensen finished his coffee and his packet of bowl of oatmeal in silence, feeling small in the expanse of a great room that had once been filled with the sound of laughter and little feet.

His phone rang. He answered it without looking at the caller ID. Jensen could use someone to talk to right now, even if it was a solicitor. 

He coughed. “Hello.”

There was a long pause then a deep voice, “Jensen”.

For a moment, Jensen thought it was Tom or Shep, but to this day they still called him Uncle Jensen. Jensen’s stomach sank a little. He did recognize this voice, and the sound was painted with strokes of something even more familiar. Before Jensen could say the boy’s name (well he wasn’t a boy anymore but a man), the caller replied.

“This is West Collins.” The perfunctory seriousness with which he said his own name, almost made Jensen laugh. As he grew, West had become much more grounded than his parents had ever been.

“Hey, kid.” 

There was silence on the other side of the phone and then, “My father keeps asking for you. He didn’t even recognize me yesterday, but he remembered exactly what the two of you had for breakfast in Italy 50 years ago.” 

_ A crostata with wild berry jam and two espressos.  _ Jensen fought back a smile. 

“Look, Jensen. Would you just come see him?”

Jensen tensed. He had to stay resolved in this. He had to. He couldn’t see Misha. Not now. It wasn’t ready yet.

“I will, West. I will...it’s just-”

He heard West give a little _ hmph.  _ “I know, I know. You’re busy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d have stopped calling a long time ago, Jensen. He understands that mom has passed, but he doesn’t know where you went. He just keeps searching for you.”

Tears pricked at Jensen’s eyes, his stomach was queasy and he didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “Goodbye, West. I need to take my pills now.”

Trembling, Jensen hung up the phone. A few deep breaths helped Jensen keep it together. He had a lot of work to do today; this was one of the last chapters. He pulled out his laptop and opened the only file on his desktop. The file was named  _ Misha and Me.  _ There were hundreds of pages already written and these were the very first lines.

  
_ I had two loves of my life. A woman the world knew about and a man the world didn’t. _


	2. Chapter 2

_ Rome, Twenty Years Earlier _

  
The apartment only had one bedroom. It was in a quiet part of Rome that nobody really thought much about. Beneath the apartment, there was a small bakery that was owned by an old man who spoke only three words of English, “Keep it down!” Over the years, Jensen and Misha had heard those words many times.

This morning they were still in their sleep clothes, puttering around the kitchen. Misha had made the coffee, and it was always stronger when he did. Jensen had stopped liking it that way, but he couldn’t bear to tell Misha that after all these years. After all these little rituals they’d developed.

Jensen had almost lost track of the times he’d been to Rome with Misha over the years. Thirty maybe? When they were so young, it had been for Jus In Bello con, but that felt like a lifetime ago. In some ways, it was. Now, once a year they’d meet here, just the two of them.

Jensen was always surprised at how little he’d changed on the inside. Jensen had expected to  _ feel  _ old. To feel different as his muscles began to ache and his hair began to grey. Jensen still only had grey at his temples, but Misha’s hair had been a bright soft white for a few years now. He’d dyed it for awhile, then one day he just stopped. Jensen hadn’t cared - Misha was beautiful, now and always. It worried Jensen though because he was rather certain that Misha did care. That Misha was much more in tune with the tick of the clock than Jensen was. 

“Did you take your pills, honey?” Jensen asked as he put his coffee mug in the sink. 

“Which ones?” There was a bit of an edge to Misha’s voice, but when Jensen looked at him he was rewarded with that familiar smile.

“The ones that make you less of a little shit.” Jensen winked at him.

“No amount of medical intervention could help me with that, sweetheart. But yes, I took them.” Misha leaned up and kissed Jensen on the cheek. His lips were dry, but the connection was still good. Sweet. Misha put his cup in the sink alongside Misha’s.

“We better wash the dishes,” Misha said. “Don’t want a repeat of the mold incident of 2029.”

Jensen laughed. They’d left half a cheesecake on the counter and the smell was so bad that upon entering their apartment the following year, Misha had immediately hurled on the floor. 

Mostly in silence, the two of them washed the dishes. Misha wetting them and Jensen drying them. It was just another one of their rituals. Jensen hadn’t known he was taking them for granted, hadn’t known he wasn’t appreciating those little things enough. 

“When’s your flight leave again?” Jensen asked.

“I’ll have to be out of here around 11. I’ll meet Vicki in Amsterdam later today.”

“Ah,” Jensen wrapped his arms around Misha’s waist. “That leaves us time for a little fun.”

Misha chuckled. “Sorry, you horny old man. We used my last pill on Wednesday. I spilled a bunch at the airport, remember?” He looked down at his feet. Jensen hadn’t meant to upset him but he knew Misha was a little sensitive about this topic. “I can blow you if you want.”

A part of Jensen wanted that, but it never felt right when he couldn’t reciprocate, especially because he knew Misha was bothered by it, regardless of what he said. “Just lay with me,” Jensen said. “Read me some poetry.”

Jensen and Misha went back to their small bedroom and lay on the covers together. Misha propped his head on Jensen’s chest and read from a small book of poems he always kept in their nightstand.

Very clearly, Jensen remembered the Keats poem Misha read him that morning day in Rome. 

When I have fears that I may cease to be 

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. 

 

They were alone on the street in Rome as they waited for Misha’s cab. Just before it pulled up, Misha leaned up and pressed their lips together. Soft with parted mouths.

One could never know these things at the time, but this had been their last kiss. They hadn’t needed to wash those dishes after all. 

 

_ Twenty Years Later _

 

Jensen wiped a stray tear from just under his eyelashes. He quickly shut the laptop. A break from all this might be the only thing that could help him from the ache he felt pressing in his chest. 

He spent the rest of the day distracting himself. He watched the Game Show Network for several hours. He did the flexibility exercises his doctor had prescribed and made himself a cheese sandwich for lunch. 

He tried to call Jared but it just rang to leave a message. He should have planned to write this chapter on a day he went to lunch with JJ. She always helped him forget his troubles. JJ was his light and joy, the most precious thing in all his life. He knew she was busy today, but he’d take the next best thing. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his music until he found the artist JJ Ackles. 

According to Jensen, his daughter had a more beautiful voice than he ever did. She was born to sing and perform. More people knew her name than had ever known his, even in his heyday. He was so proud of her. Not because of her fame but because of the amazing person she’d become.

Afraid of the sadness creeping up on him, Jensen lay down on his bed and slipped his headphones into his ears. The soft refrains of his daughter singing “Wild Mountain Thyme” came from the speakers. He sang along with it like he had when she was just a child.

O the summer time has come

And the trees are sweetly bloomin'

And the wild mountain thyme

Grows around the bloomin' heather

Later that evening, Jensen took his nightly pain meds. He was tired already, yet feeling much better than he had been earlier in the day. Suddenly, he remembered he hadn’t backed up the new chapter he’d written today. Jensen rushed to his laptop and opened it up. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw nothing he’d written had been lost. Ever since he accidentally deleted 10,000 words of the book, Jensen backed up his writing by e-mailing it to himself.

In his inbox, he had some strange offers, some newsletters he’d signed up for, something from Zoe, who was JJ’s wife, an e-mail from West he’d never opened and right below it, the email he’d sent to himself yesterday with more words from  _ Misha and Me.  _

Some would call what happened next an accident, it probably was, though Jensen could never really be sure. He’d been very tired and his pain meds were a cocktail of strong stuff. In any case, the following morning Jensen would have no recollection of replying to West’s email with nothing but an attached Word document, and he’d promptly deleted the message from his own inbox.

No one would realized what’d he’d done. No one except West Collins.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there's both a bit of homophobia in this and some bi-erasure. I was trying to be true to the time period (the nineties) and location (Texas). Jensen's dad features in this and he spouts off some homophobic stuff, but it's a bit different than the angry rhetoric you usually see from like John Winchester in fic. Anyway, I have NO idea what Jensen's fathers actual views are on lgbt people. So this is not meant to be an actual reflection on the real person.This is completely fabricated from what I've seen of a specific kind of homophobia.

_ Sixty-Six Years Earlier _

 

Jensen paced the floor of his bedroom. He’d chewed his fingernails to stubs and his stomach was churning. Mrs. Prater had called his dad - who’d been working late- and told him all about what Jensen had been doing with her son.  _ Just kissing.  _ That’s all it had been. Evan Prater, one of Jensen’s good buddies, had been so excited about that winning touchdown.

Jensen had been waiting under one of the streetlamps in the school’s vacant lot, and Evan had just run up to him and kissed him on the mouth. He tasted like RC Cola and smelled like fresh-cut turf. The kiss was unexpected and good so Jensen just kissed him back. A cheerleader and a quarterback of the football team. Totally normal, right? And they were  _ just kissing. _

The only problem was Mrs. Prater. She’d caught them kissing in that streetlamp light after the big game and now Jensen was here, in his room, waiting for his dad to confront him. Never in his life had Jensen been more terrified.

He waited in his room three hours before his father finally knocked on the door. Just one swift tap. Jensen hesitated, but then said, defeatedly, “Come in.”

His father slipped through the door and shut it behind him. He was an imposing man. Six foot tall and always looked a person right in the eye. When he said jump, you said how high, but he never said dumbass shit like ‘when I say jump you say how high’. He didn’t need to. People just knew.

“Son, take a seat. We need to talk.” His voice stayed even. Dad was never one to lose control. That didn’t make this less scary though.

Jensen swallowed and sat down on the bed. He stared down at his black socks. For some reason, he wished he’d put on his shoes. This felt like a conversation one should have while wearing shoes. Oh well, it was too late now.

His dad grabbed his desk chair and pulled it up front of Jensen.

“So, I’ve spoken with Mrs. Prater.”

Jensen’s face flushed. He knew this was coming, but it was going to be different all together hearing it. 

“Look at me, Jensen.”

Jensen did. He looked up into his dad’s frowning face, and he wanted fold himself up into an envelope and mail himself to like Russia or something. 

“You’re a good kid. You always have been, and I understand how at this age everything inside your...well, your body is all turned up to eleven. I get that, but you’re sixteen now, son. You’re practically a man.” His dad rubbed his face, his fingers scratching audibly on grey stubble. “Maybe I should’ve said something when you were a kid and you played house with that boy down the street. But you were a kid then Jensen. You were just playing and I knew that. You’re not a child anymore, son, and there comes a time to put childish things away.”

“Dad, I, we were just kissing.” It’s what Jensen had said to Mrs. Prater, to himself, and now to his dad. It seemed to be his only defense. “And I like girls.” Jensen had to swallow the ‘too’ that was on his tongue.

“I know you do. That’s even more reason for this to stop. If you choose the homosexual lifestyle, there’s so much you miss out on. Good things, Jensen, that your mother and I want for you, that I know you want for yourself.”

Jensen sighed. His dad had never been especially cruel to gay people. He didn’t call them names, in public or private. Jensen knew his father didn’t hate them and he wasn’t necessarily disgusted by them or anything. His dad felt  _ sorry  _ for them. Sorry for how misguided they were, how confused, sorry for whatever tragedy of their childhood made them this way. Took from them the essential, natural joys of life - marriage, parenthood, acceptance.

“I know, Dad. I just-” What was he gonna say? That he should get a pass because Evan’s eyes were so  _ brown,  _ he always shared his Doublemint with Jensen between periods, and occasionally he’d forget to tie his left shoe, which was all sorts of cute. Because boys were cute, dammit, and honestly Jensen didn’t know how not everyone saw that. 

“Just what, son?”

Jensen sighed, resigned. His dad wanted what was best for him. His dad had always taught him what it meant to be a man. How it took kindness, strength and, most importantly, restraint. 

“Do I need to quit the cheerleading team?” 

Dad put a hand on his shoulder. “Just ask one of the girls out.”

Jensen swallowed. “Katie Phelps is nice, I guess.” 

Two weeks later, Jensen was on a date with Katie Phelps when he ran into Evan at the mini-golf course. Evan was visibly upset and when Katie was in the bathroom, Evan dragged Jensen behind the tiny windmill.

“What’s wrong?” Jensen whispered. Evan had both his hands on Jensen’s shoulders. They were too close.

“I’m leaving for military school tomorrow. I wasn’t gonna tell anyone but, shit, Jensen.”

“Your mom is sending you away?”

“So I can fight the gay or something.”

“She’s sending you to a school full of nothing but sweaty uniformed boys for that?”

Evan smiled and punched Jensen lightly in the arm. “I haven’t smiled since the night I won that football game.”

“I know. It sucks.”

“I’m not even gay,” he sighed. “I just wanted to kiss you.” Evan ran his hand up Jensen’s neck and cupped his face. It was sadder this time. The first time it had been young - like summer and baseball and the Good Humor ice cream truck. This time it felt like something lost. Jensen kissed Evan soft and slow, his yellow putter still in his left hand. 

When they broke apart, Jensen noticed Katie had been watching them.

“Goodbye, Jensen,” Evan said then walked away without a glance to Katie.

Heart pounding, Jensen rushed up to Katie. “Listen, I-”

“You remember that foreign exchange student last year?”

“Uhh...Svetlana?”

Katie nodded. “Let’s just say Svetlana and I...we spent our fair share of time under windmills.” 

It took Jensen a moment to get it but then. “Oh.”

Katie linked her arm with Jensen’s. “Come on ya two-timer, buy me a snowcone.”

Jensen couldn't say no to that. 

Katie and Jensen dated through the next two years of high school. She was sweet and good and he liked her. Also, Katie understood. And Dad, Dad was proud of the good man his son was growing into. Then, Jensen told him he wanted to go to Hollywood instead of college.

 

_ Sixty-Six Years Later _

 

West knew he probably shouldn’t have read this. That Jensen had most likely sent this to him by accident somehow, but curiosity had been a bit too much to resist. Over the last twenty years, he hadn’t seen much of the man he once saw so often. Jensen, Dad’s special friend, Dad’s boyfriend. West knew little of the man’s past. Even just this small portion about his teenage years had given West a better idea of him. West always assumed his dad, Misha, had been Jensen’s exception.

West was startled when he heard bare footsteps behind him. He turned to see his father standing there in nothing but a long t-shirt. 

“You’re up from your nap early,” West said to Misha who was rubbing his eyes. 

“Was thirsty,” he mumbled.

West stood up from the computer. “Sit down, Dad. I can get you a drink.”

Misha waved him off. “Eh, you get back to your porn. I can pour myself a damn glass of water.”

West smiled at Misha and then to himself. This was a good day for his dad. West loved good days. 

He looked back at the open file on his computer. For a moment, he considered deleting the thing, but Misha had never spoken to him about what happened between he and Jensen. Jensen wasn’t talking or visiting and his dad didn’t have memory about what had pulled them apart.

This document, whatever it was, whatever it was meant to be, it might have the answer that both he and his dad were looking for.


End file.
